During the summer of
1909 the Dutch painter, Kees van Dongen, recorded an important event
in the history of the dance, the two Russian ballerinas, Pavlova and
Ida Rubinstein, dancing in Cléopâtre during the first
appearance of Diaghilev's company in Paris (fig. 1). (1) It was
Rubinstein's first season with Diaghilev and basically Pavlova's
last.

The ballet itself had been staged in St. Petersburg by its
choreographer, Michel Fokine, as Egyptian Nights.Its music
by Aronsky, which Diaghilev found "feeble, somewhat commonplace
and too reminiscent of the drawing room," (2) was changed in
Paris by the injection of works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Glinka,
Mussorgsky and Glazunov. Indeed as Diaghilev's collaborator,
Alexandre Benois, was to remember later, it was criticized as
"a sort of Russian salad of national composers." (3)
Nevertheless Cléopâtre proved an enormous success at its
first performance on 2 June 1909 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in
Paris.

An important element in its success was Fokine's choreography.
Undoubtedly this was influenced by Isadora Duncan who had a
strong impact upon the Russian dance when she visited St. Petersburg
in 1905 and toured Russia with her company about 1907. (4) Her effect
was usually analyzed by her contemporaries as freeing the dancers
from the restricting costumes of the traditional ballet and
stimulating an insistence upon a unity of theme throughout any
single dance. (5) In relation to this influence, which the Russians
generously confessed, (6) it is interesting that Fokine described his
frustration in St. Petersburg hunting costumes which had been made
for an earlier version of Cléopâtre.which had never been
performed, and finding only traditional filmy tutus. (7) He also
emphasized the importance of the unity of the theme in
Cléopâtre. (8)

Appropriately Fokine's other inspiration was Egypt. He tells us
that he immersed himself in the Egyptian collections of the
Hermitage and read innumerable books on Egyptian life and art. (9) He
wrote, "When I staged 'Egyptian Nights' I was not thinking of
the modernists, but had only one thing in mind: Egypt and the
wonderful beauty of its art....These profile positions, angular
lines, and flat palms were sustained all through the
ballet." (10)

It was Leo Bakst who created the setting and costumes for this
dance. Benois tells us that "Bakst's décor alone was
outstanding-solemn in its composition, beautiful in its grey-pink
and sombre violet! This background, perfectly suggestive of a hot,
sultry Eastern evening, was an ideal foil for the purple costumes,
the shining gold and the intricately-plaited black hair." (11)
Reproductions of it make it seem so ponderously archaeological (it
was also described as monumental and sinister) (12) that we can
understand Van Dongen's eliminating it in his record of the ballet.
On the other hand the painter was not indifferent to the costumes
which Bakst designed. In 1911 a critic wrote, "M. Léon Bakst
est le Delacroix du costume... L'emmaillottement de la reine
d'Egypte dans plusieurs voiles de couleur... produit un effet
magnifique...M. Bakst habille un mouvement et non un mannequin...le
vêtement...extériorise l'âme, vibrante comme elle, et ses
couleurs sont celles de la passion." (13)

In spite of the success of the setting and costumes Cléopâtre was
largely a dancers' ballet. Benois comments that, although the plot
was "absurd,...the talents of the performers also contributed
largely to the success of Cléopâtre...Indeed it would have
been difficult to find an assembly of such talented artists."
(14) Among them were Karsavina and Nijinsky, and Fokine himself as
the lover who was described as "passionate" (15) and a
"hurricane." (16) But the two who triumphed and who were
always considered in opposition to each other were Pavlova and
Rubinstein.

Pavlova was the star of Diaghilev's company. It was a painting of
her by Serov that was used for the poster announcing the 1909
season. In Cléopâtre she was given the leading role if,
confusingly, it was not the title role: she danced Tahor as she had
danced it in the St. Petersburg version, Egyptian Nights.Fokine
who danced with her in both versions and was of course the ballet's
choreographer described Pavlova's role: "Tahor is the fiancée
of Amoun (the part I played). She is very pathetic in her love for
the young hunter, and conveys dramatic anguish when he is
unfaithful to her and gives his love and life to
Cleopatra." (17) In preparation for the ballet in St.
Petersburg, Pavlova had even rehearsed with a live snake to capture
the quality of a snake dance Fokine had seen in the reproduction of
an ancient Egyptian painting. (18) We are told by Benois that Pavlova
was "divine" (19) in this ballet, by Fokine that she was
"remarkably tragic," (20) and again by Benois that
"next to this hurricane [Fokine] the image of the tender,
flexible young girl created by Pavlova seems more frail and
refined." (21) Another critic reported: "Très grand fut le
succès que Pavlova qui incarnait l'esclave, remporta pour ses
danses plastiques, pour ses poses pleines de style, pour son jeu séduisant
- et
puissamment expressif dans la scène mimique terminale." (22) It
was this seductive, flexible, exotic Pavlova (so unlike the Dying
Swan which is our conventional image of her) that Van Dongen
chose to paint.

Pavlova was nevertheless unhappy with Cléopâtre and
Diaghilev's company, and returned to dance with them only briefly in
Giselle in London in 1911. Her reasons for leaving she
explained tactfully as being a fundamental difference between her
approach and Fokine's. She said of him, "the beauty of the
scenes he combines, the splendors of the set ting and costumes, the
charm of the music, exercise so captivating and surprising an
effect upon the public, that the dancer's individuality is lost
sight of." (23) The dancer Serge Lifar presented the Diaghilev
company's point of view in his biography of the impresario, writing
that she "behaved much like a tenor who expects the orchestra
always to follow his singing, and adapt itself to all his rhythmic
vagaries." (24) A recent historian of the dance has stated it
succinctly, "In Les Sylphides she had been eclipsed by
Nijinsky, in Cléopâtre by the exotic beauty of Rubinstein...At
the end of the season she left." (25)